Comments for Infrastructure Punk – René Lavanchy's infrastructure bloghttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com
The whys and wherefores from a recovering infrastructure finance journalistMon, 06 Oct 2014 07:55:57 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/Comment on Blog suspended by strawbrickhttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/blog-suspended/comment-page-1/#comment-376
Mon, 06 Oct 2014 07:55:57 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=553#comment-376Get Well soon!
]]>Comment on How will the UK pay for its future railway? by René Lavanchyhttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/how-will-the-uk-pay-for-its-future-railway/comment-page-1/#comment-353
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 14:39:57 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=517#comment-353I could but that’s ancient history now. Plus the BR model was not satisfactory at all – far too much stop-start investment and too much of a chokehold by the Treasury. BR has a bad name but the reason the railway was run down was politicians were responsible for writing the cheques. NR is a definite improvement. Making it publicly owned risks bringing politicians back into the accounts payable office.

I am however interested in writing in more detail about possible future options.

]]>Comment on How will the UK pay for its future railway? by strawbrickhttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/how-will-the-uk-pay-for-its-future-railway/comment-page-1/#comment-351
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 07:53:35 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=517#comment-351Perhaps you could write a comparison between how the railways were financed under British Railways / British Rail and the current system …
]]>Comment on Could London learn from Sydney airport plans? by René Lavanchyhttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/could-london-learn-from-sydney-airport-plans/comment-page-1/#comment-346
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 23:37:31 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=410#comment-346The short answer is no, I don’t have that info, but I know anecdotally that expanding an airport is perceived by the private sector as much less of a risk, both technically and financially, than building one from scratch. Of course, disruption is an issue, but even though passengers might well be inconvenienced, they will still be paying into the airport’s coffers.
]]>Comment on Could London learn from Sydney airport plans? by Dan O'Huiginn (@danohu)https://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/could-london-learn-from-sydney-airport-plans/comment-page-1/#comment-344
Fri, 25 Jul 2014 16:50:14 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=410#comment-344Do you have an idea about the relative engineering cost of incremental expansion, vs. building something big at the beginning. I’d imagine it costs a lot more to expand an airport without disrupting the existing users?
]]>Comment on The Commonwealth Games 2014 and infrastructure (but mostly infrastructure) by Edward Harkinshttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/the-commonwealth-games-2014-and-infrastructure-but-mostly-infrastructure/comment-page-1/#comment-342
Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:08:14 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=511#comment-342From here in Glasgow on the morning of the day of the Commonwealth Games and city where the atmosphere has really taken hold. It’s heartening to see mention of the national infrastructure plan of the Scottish Government. One positive aspect of having a National infrastructure plan is that it helps cool the ardour of politicians for the short-termism, vote-buying ‘new infrastructure spend’ announcements. In the UK we have been enduring many vested interests (CBI, TUC, IoD etc.) all chanting the same mantra of ‘must spend vastly more additional (public) money on new infrastructure to lead recovery from recession’. The uncomfortable reality is that there is no case in all of modern economic history where such additional new project spend has lead recovery out of recession or slump. There are many essential imperatives as to why the UK needs more infrastructure investment – but short-termist politics and supposed recovery leadership are not among them.
Meantime, I can vouch from professional experience ‘on the ground’ that there is new Glasgow infrastructure that would not have happened without the Commonwealth Games. One example is the massive Eat End Veladrome cycling and athletics indoor arena. I know from survey work in the 1990s that the huge expanse of land on which it was built was highly unstable, and mildly contaminated, derelict land. The original dense residential development of inter-world-wars vintage has to be demolished because of the ground conditions. The cost and technical problems were judged to have rendered any conventional case for re-development unviable. Only the emergence of the successful Commonwealth Games bid made possible a case for significant public investment (e.g. subsidy) of the necessary scale. A case of how do you meaningfully value the it-would-not-have-otherwise-have-happened outcomes of such mega events?
]]>Comment on UK project bonds part 1: Scotland pwns by The Commonwealth Games 2014 and infrastructure (but mostly infrastructure) | Infrastructure Punk – René Lavanchy's infrastructure bloghttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/uk-project-bonds-part-1-scotland-pwns/comment-page-1/#comment-341
Wed, 23 Jul 2014 06:50:47 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=332#comment-341[…] towns to attend the games won’t notice it, but the local motorway network is currently being upgraded using private finance under the ‘non-profit distributing’ model, the Scottish flavour […]
]]>Comment on As I said, and as MPs now say, PFI is dead by Edward Harkinshttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/as-i-said-and-as-mps-now-say-pfi-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-315
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 20:00:51 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=499#comment-315It is indeed extraordinary that the UK media have almost without exception continued to either under-report or wholly ignore the extensive waste and failures of PFI projects. PFI can be seen as a demonstration that UK governance is no longer fit-for-purpose; this is an inter-Governments, all-Party and Civil Service failure of truly epic proportions. There are other taxpayer-funded public policy tawdry failures along the way – like Help to Buy and Mortgage rescue – but they pale into insignificance against the scale of the PFI debacle. Why are the UK media so resolutely inattentive on this?
]]>Comment on M6 Toll: the owners head for next exit by René Lavanchyhttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/m6-toll-the-owners-head-for-next-exit/comment-page-1/#comment-303
Mon, 02 Jun 2014 12:49:06 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=193#comment-303The project has already been restructured in the light of its disappointing performance to date. I don’t think any recent increase is likely to reverse the trend of traffic being below the business case.
]]>Comment on M6 Toll: the owners head for next exit by Stephen Lawrencehttps://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/m6-toll-the-owners-head-for-next-exit/comment-page-1/#comment-301
Sun, 01 Jun 2014 21:39:09 +0000http://infrastructurepunk.wordpress.com/?p=193#comment-301Any update given the 12% traffic increase in the Jan-Mar quarter? – or is that only a blip resulting from M6 closures?
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